Contemporary Activism Research Articles

Remembering like a state: Surveillance databases, digital activist traces and the repressive potential of mediated prospective memory

Departing from personal memories of protests in London and Berlin, in this article I make space within the memory-activism nexus to consider how contemporary activists are remembered by that which they conventionally target: the state. To do this, I first recount existing understandings of that nexus and the position of the state therein. I then emphasise how states remember activists via police surveillance databases before discussing the digital activist traces held in such databases via the concept of mediated prospective memory. Thereafter, I empirically ground these conceptual contributions via a discussion of the surveillance databases used in the United Kingdom and Germany and the growing adoption of automated facial recognition technology in these countries. This discussion relies on the work of police monitoring groups whose activism contributes, alongside the various actions of the state and its agencies that I foreground, to the complexity of the memory-activism nexus.

СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ АКТОРЫ МИРОВОЙ ПОЛИТИКИ И МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ

Статья посвящена исследованию положения и состояния современных акторов мировой политики и международных отношений. Определяется, что акторы мировой политики – это субъекты мировой системы, которые занимают ведущую роль, оказывают существенное влияние на других субъектов политического пространства и задают новые ориентиры мировой политики. Современными акторами мировой политики и международных отношений стоит считать США (как и блок НАТО в целом), Индию, Китай, Россию и другие страны. Особая роль в работе отводится трудам И. Валлерстайна, выделяются основополагающие тезисы, которые обуславливают состояние мировой системы. Делается вывод о том, что в эпоху структурной трансформации политических процессов и сопряженных с ними социальных, идеологических, культурных и экономических, возникает стремление отдельных стран-акторов занять более благоприятное положение в назревающей системе, выйти из периферического или полупериферического положения в иерархии «мир-системы» – в центральное. The article is devoted to the study of the position and state of key actors of world politics and international relations. It is determined that key actors of world politics are subjects of the world system that occupy a leading role, have a significant influence on other actors of the political space and set new guidelines for world politics. The key actors of world politics and international relations should be considered the United States (as well as the NATO bloc as a whole), India, China, Russia and other countries. A special role in the work is given to the works of I. Wallerstein, the fundamental theses that determine the state of the world system are highlighted. It is concluded that in the era of structural transformation of political processes and associated social, ideological, cultural and economic ones, there is a desire of individual countries-actors to take a more favorable position in the maturing system, to leave the peripheral or semi-peripheral position in the hierarchy of the "world system" to the central one.

Activist subtitling narrates liminoid experiences countering ISIS post-Arab Spring—Daya alTaseh and The Bigh daddy Show

This paper examines activist subtitling practices in light of the two sociological concepts of narrativity and liminality. With particular focus on online contemporary activist communities that counter extremism, subtitling is studied as part of the cultural liminoid practices that produce and disseminate alternative narratives challenging the rigid frames of global jihadism. Launched as reactions to the repercussions of the Arab Spring and the establishment of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ضايعة الطاسة Daya alTaseh and ذا بيج دادي شوو The Bigh daddy Show are two activist online media initiatives that spread counter-jihadist narratives in Arabic subtitled in English. The study attempts to investigate the narratives mediated in the subtitles and their reflections of liminality. The subtitling in both initiatives is scrutinised and compared using a two-fold theoretical framework combining the socio-narrative theory in translation studies and theories on activist translation. Guided by this framework, the paper applies a descriptive qualitative analysis to data collected from observations and interviews. The data analysis reveals the distinct liminoid stories of Daya alTasehand The Bigh daddy Show as narrated in the English subtitles, pinpointing the similarities and differences between them. User interaction with both initiatives is also highlighted as a contributor to the development of the subtitling process.

Re-Framing (South) African Youth Ministry

Abstract Youth ministry, as understood in an African context, is predominantly informed, and guided by a Western/European philosophy and hegemony. African youth ministry, it seems, is struggling to break away from the hegemony of the developed world, a hegemony that is not always compatible with the developing world (Africa, in this instance) and that also fails to deal with its problems. There has been renewed energy shown by the youth on the African continent, calling for a decolonial conversation, which, ideally, should also include theology and youth ministry. The #feesmustfall and #rhodesmustfall campaigns in South Africa have proven that the youth in the developing world remain a dominant voice for justice and transformation in spheres controlled by the adult community, those who are traditionally in power and who hold a philosophy that is often vastly different from the youth and the world that they inhabit. In a sense, one can argue that the actions in the calling for justice and transformation of the youth are indeed prophetic. This article will argue that the youth from emerging nations, such as those in Africa, have the agency to make a profound difference in (public) areas where there is injustice, thus offering a message of hope. This means of agency amongst the youth in the public domain is an expression of how youth ministry should not restrict itself to the clerical and ecclesial domains, but also how they ought to act in the public domain in applying public practical theology. Furthermore, this article argues, as a public practical theology, there is a need to build a theological theory, which is local and distinct from the Western/European context, to further the prophetic actions of the youth. The twofold aim of this article will be achieved through a theoretical approach with reflections on contemporary actions of, particularly, South African youth.

The Innovative Element in the Genre of Opera or the Modernity of Artistic Expression in the Contemporary Lyric Theater

This paper examines the evolutionary process of moving from traditional styles to pioneering directions in the opera genre. This phenomenon expressed itself in a mixture of styles and forms of language, in the integration of different types of artistic means of expression. Another issue would be related to the nature of the lyrical tradition, its need for preservation and continuity, and the extent to which innovation is tolerated in opera to ensure that artistic works do not cross genre boundaries. It is a new phenomenon for contemporary actors and audiences, the one present in the theater today. By examining the evolution of the art of opera, it was possible to identify the general pattern of development of innovative opera and to argue that artistic integration is the source of diversity on stage and the basis of innovation in opera production. For this purpose, a cultural-historical and historical-artistic approach was used. The academic novelty of the study consists, first of all, in the complex analysis of the sources related to the translation of meta-language in lyrical art, and secondly, the incorporation of these sources in the academic circulation as important and significant for the recognition of the reform of the opera genre. Keywords: opera performance, opera direction, traditions, innovations, synthesis of arts, meanings.

Positioning action research as a critical means of understanding coaching: considerations from the field

ABSTRACT This paper shines light upon the methodological value of action research as a critical means of studying coaching practice. Described as an opportunity for bridging the gap between practice and research, the application of action research to sports coaching aims to explicitly and intentionally advance practice. However, far from the enduring depictions of action research as a linear cyclical process, contemporary action research has begun to appreciate its ambiguity; much like the problematic nature of sports coaching itself. Despite this ambiguity, we contend that action research can better harness the messy realities and complexities that coaches encounter within their everyday practice. Through the provision of critical reflections the overarching aim of the paper was not only to make the case for action research as a means of cultivating critical scholarship in sports coaching but to go further, problematising some complex realities of life as an action researcher.

Spatial scales of inflation and deflation

Isabella Weber’s book is a prodigious contribution to the political economy of Chinese development. One of the text’s most valuable contributions is its identification of the consistently anti-inflationary stance of CCP policy. Its coverage of debates surrounding price stability and liberalisation during the shifts away from the plan in the late 1980s is particularly valuable. Here, I focus on the question of inflation, which since 2021 has dramatically appeared on the agenda for the first time in the professional lives of many political economists and geographers in the global north. The book provides valuable, fine-grained evidence from contemporary Chinese policymakers (above all through a reading of Zhao Ziyang’s writings) to make the case that the inflationary pressures experienced in China as the government experimented with reforming the planned economy during the late 1980s were not principally monetary phenomena – nor were they understood as such by contemporary actors. I build on the text by showing how it demonstrates the relevance of exploring the inflation question at a variety of spatial scales. I conclude by considering how contemporary Chinese policymakers may negotiate this inflationary ‘scale-jumping’.

Situating commercial determinants of health in their historical context: a qualitative study of sugar-sweetened beverages in Jamaica

BackgroundNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality across the Caribbean and similar regions. Structural determinants include a marked increase in the dependency on food imports, and the proliferation of processed foods, including sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). We focused on Jamaica as a case study and the health challenge of SSBs, and situated contemporary actions, experiences and policies within their historical context to investigate underlying drivers of commercial determinants of health and attempts to counter them. We asked: how can a historical perspective of the drivers of high level SSB consumption in Jamaica contribute to an enhanced understanding of the context of public health policies aimed at reducing their intake?MethodsAn ethnographic approach with remote data collection included online semi-structured interviews and workshops with 22 local experts and practitioners of health, agriculture and nutrition in Jamaica and attending relevant regional public webinars on SSBs and NCD action in the Caribbean. Our analysis was situated within a review of historical studies of Caribbean food economies with focus on the twentieth century. Jamaican and UK-based researchers collected and ethnographically analysed the data, and discussed findings with the wider transdisciplinary team.ResultsWe emphasise three key areas in which historical events have shaped contextual factors of SSB consumption. Trade privileged sugar as a cash crop over food production during Jamaica’s long colonial history, and trade deregulation since the 1980s through structural adjustment opened markets to transnational companies. These changes increased Jamaican receptiveness to the mass advertisement and marketing of these companies, whilst long-standing power imbalances hampered taxation and regulation in contemporary public health actions. Civil society efforts were important for promoting structural changes to curb overconsumption of SSBs and decentring such entrenched power relations.ConclusionThe contemporary challenge of SSBs in Jamaica is a poignant case study of commercial determinants of health and the important context of global market-driven economies and the involvement of private sector interests in public health policies and governance. Historically contextualising these determinants is paramount to making sense of the sugar ecology in Jamaica today and can help elucidate entrenched power dynamics and their key actors.

Volk utopia: Racial futures and ecological politics on the German far-right

Focusing on the resurgence of so-called völkisch (ethno-nationalist) settlements in northern Germany over the past three decades, this paper explores the emergent socio-spatial forms through which nativist and xenophobic responses to the ecological crisis are being expressed. It argues that political ecologies of the future cannot be understood, in the present conjuncture, without taking into account those actors which are working to manifest the future in explicitly racialised and immunitary forms. After providing an overview of the development of völkisch movements and ideologies since the 19th century, I introduce contemporary actors and organisations which are attempting to reconfigure the climate crisis as a matter of right-wing concern. These strategies position Nature as a signifier that stitches together far-right concerns about the infiltration of the German Volk and landscape by racialised threats, facilitating a form of ecological praxis through rural settlement projects that is heavily centred around a homogenous and naturalised notion of German identity. Rather than an outright denial of the impending urgency of the climate crisis, I argue that völkisch discourses represent a different, and arguably more dangerous response to the spectre of ecological disorder, and one which works in an immunological and anticipatory register. The affective intensity of these imaginaries and strategies also demonstrate that the terrains of hope, possibility, and even utopia increasingly hold the potential to be claimed by the violent and exclusivist ideologies of the far-right. No mere harbinger of ‘things to come’, völkisch strategies represent a mode of responding to the climate crisis in the present, and of prefiguring an ethno-nationalist ‘solution’ which must be taken seriously by activists and scholars.

Radical nationalism

ABSTRACT Radical nationalism is a political ideology centred on tying an imagined people to a bordered territory. It grows from nationalism’s root system into a diversity of political manifestations aimed at sealing the people-territory bond. By theorizing radical nationalism, this article outlines a political-ideological approach that opens new pathways for studying the so-called far right. The article draws on Michael Freeden’s conceptual-morphological theory and delineates how nationalism’s thin-centred conceptual core – people and territory – can thicken into a full-bodied political ideology: from football and flags to systemic discrimination, deportations, and mass violence. In response to the empirical observation that radical nationalism nurtures historical and contemporary actors across the left-right spectrum, the article offers a political-ideological lens for transhistorical analyses of various political manifestations that sprout and flourish from the exclusionary roots of the modern nation-state.

Book review - Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism by Shelton Stromquist. 2023

Shelton Stromquist has written a long and very rich account of the international history of local socialist activism, often called municipal socialism. Drawing on various examples, Stromquist wants to shift the focus from national parliamentary politics and centrist narratives to the local level, where the labour movement was built. At a time when local struggles such as affordable housing are once again on the agenda of progressive activists, this book offers important insights into the early local history of labour politics and inspiration for contemporary activists and municipal socialists.

Confident Rogue and Anguished Conformist: The Career Paths of Northern Irish Actors Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt

Northern Ireland has been the birthplace of many accomplished and sometimes famous actors for the stage, television and film. While academic star study has often looked for its models in Hollywood and Bollywood, charting how studios and agents shaped the personas of their major talent, successful contemporary actors must eventually choose roles that develop their craft and career with the knowledge that they are actually building a reputation and a future perception of themselves. Due to Northern Ireland’s contested status, home-grown actors also know that their appearance in Irish material can be highly charged and involve an element of imported ‘Northern Irishness’. Building on previous work by Richard Dyer and Dana Polan on stars, and Ruth Barton and Heather Sutherland on Irish actors, I trace the career trajectories of Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, a Catholic and Protestant, who happened to be both born in or near Ballymena, and who famously starred together in the post-Good Friday Agreement film Five Minutes of Heaven (2009). Whereas Neeson has transferred his ‘Northern Irishness’ often seamlessly to Hollywood needs and demands, Nesbitt provides a more grounded Northern Irish example of success in mainly British television.

HORMĒ: WHAT IS IT AND WHERE IS IT? A CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION OF THE STOIC THEORY OF ACTION

The location of hormē (impulse) is a long-standing problem in Stoic action theory, as it is unclear whether it comes before or after the assent. In this paper, we aim to define hormē and locate it in the chain of mental states that, for the Stoics, bring us to action. Following both ancient and modern sources, we argue that hormē is best understood as an intention since it comprises a cluster of mental states that cause intentional action. We also argue that the impulse coincides with the assent because they are both activated in an agent’s mind almost simultaneously after an external presentation. We, then, reject the notion of double impulse and an understanding of hormē as a desire. The paper highlights interesting points of connection between the ancient and contemporary action theory by showing that the Stoic view of rational, intentional action bears strong similarities to contemporary accounts of intention.

Reenactment in the GDR and the FRG. An Actor-centered Study

While the formative phase of the Anglo-American reenactment scene has already been well researched, a historicisation of reenactments as a popular cultural practice of visualising the past is still largely lacking for Europe. In particular, little is known about the developments in East and West Germany. This is the starting point for our article, which provides an initial reconstruction and classification of the developments in the two German states, which gained momentum especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Our focus is on the subjective experience of contemporary actors, on the basis of which it we trace how various groups of people interested in history in the two German states formed and consolidated and in which ways they were similar or different. It also sheds light on the political and everyday conditions under which people acted. On the basis of these initial actor-centered explorations, the text draws attention to desiderata for further research and suggests research questions for future studies in this field – for example with regard to the transnational relationships and networks of both reenactment scenes and the developments during the post-reunification period.

Our Similarities Transcended Our Differences

The Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) was an activist organization born from the struggles of Black women in the social movements of the 1960s. Founded in response to the misogyny of the American Civil Rights Movement and racism in the Women’s Liberation movement, Black women sought to create an organization that championed issues specific to their experiences. The TWWA was unique in its approach to activism, operating under “Triple Jeopardy,” an understanding that women of colour were oppressed at the intersection of race, gender, and class, and sought to unite women from around the world through a collective understanding of oppression. Emerging out of their marginalization within other movements for social justice, the TWWA developed a unique intersectional and internationalist ethos and organizing strategies rooted in their lived experiences that would have a profound impact on contemporary activist movements.

Online ethnography of activist networks of interpreters: an “ethnonarrative” methodology for socio-political change

ABSTRACT Narrative theory in translation studies has been mostly used to examine how translators mediate and refract meaning as they contribute to circulating political agendas across contexts and audiences. Building on this heritage but extending narrative theory beyond cross-language analysis, this paper proposes an ethnonarrative methodology to enquire and write about contemporary activist networks. It provides an epistemological-theoretical framework to explore identity, action and space in prefigurative transnational social movements, and a set of narrative methods and analytical techniques to conduct an ethnography of communication. Drawing on my on-site and online ethnography of Babels, the international network of volunteer interpreters, the paper first discusses the ethical and political questions raised by my practice in, and by my writing about Babels, in the interdisciplinary context of social movement studies and interpreting studies in the first decade of the 21st century. It then exposes the ethnonarrative methodology developed in this context and illustrates its use through a detailed narrative account of how Babels constructed and negotiated its financial structure in and out of Babels.org. Finally, it discusses the extension of the methodology beyond 2.0 (so called participatory) web, as activist networks increasingly communicate through social media and videoconferencing platforms.

“Guns Go in the Cookie Jar”: Parody, Nostalgia, and the Post-Hardware Heroine

The post-hardware heroine is argued to be the latest revision of action heroines since the 1990s, emerging into a parodic postmodern paradigm that recalls compensatory reactions exhibited by the “beefcake” cinema of the 1980s that is inextricably caught up in nostalgia and desire. For Yvonne Tasker, muscular, built male bodies the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone are reactions to a then-new male encounter with the cinematic gaze, while Scott Bukatman argues they are reactions to technology and the rising posthuman. Post-hardware heroines, as such, are not only imbued with a nostalgia for the hardware heroines that first subverted male action roles of the 1990s, but actively parody the iterative history from which they appear in a fashion evocative of the waning postmodern moment. Contemporary action films Atomic Blonde (2017), Anna (stylized ANИA, 2019), Gunpowder Milkshake (2021), and Jolt (2021) are argued to mark the emergence of the post-hardware heroine and represent the new parodic paradigm in which they operate. By transgressing and subverting narrative roles occupied by gendered performances, these films look toward an action cinema that blurs the boundaries of gender and leaves behind the visual pleasures of the body.

Queer Voids

Queer Voids

Explaining with Intentional Omissions

AbstractDetermining the human activity that social processes consist in is a central task for the philosophy of the social sciences. This paper asks: which conception of agency arising from contemporary action theory is the most suitable for social science explanation? It is argued that a movement‐centered, Davidsonian picture of agency is not suitable for explaining certain social processes such as strikes and boycotts because, instead of intentional bodily movements, they are explained by the intentional omissions of agents. I propose that instead of intentional bodily movements, social processes are better explained by phenomena in which an agent is taking an active relation both to her mental or bodily processes as well as to what is happening around her. Thus, to fully explain social processes, a comprehensive theory of agency that can account for intentional actions and intentional omissions and a conception of agency that includes both materialist and volitionalist aspects is needed.

Populists in Court: Wager, Match, and Chance Considered as Generic Forms of Playful Legalities

A principal element of law is the unpredictable outcome of its proceedings. This unpredictability has fueled the hopes of many and the fears of equally as many. In recent years populists and other political mavericks have become highly capable at exploiting the element of chance in law, aiming not so much to prove guilt or maintain innocence, but rather to reconfigure the judiciary affectively as a game of winners and losers. Populists’ legal and luysory tactics make it urgent to reconsider the relation between the fields of law and the humanities. By paying more attention to the genres and media of play and game we can better assess the ways in which contemporary actors are playing with law and exploring the limits of the rules of the game. Here, the plurality that characterizes culturally and medially determined forms of legality, as Greta Olson calls it, has a counterpart in an equally culturally inspired and mediatized form of totalitarianism. In analyzing the populist play with law, my guide will be Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, in which he considers law’s origin in play and chance. For Huizinga, play is serious, as is the law. The populist play with law is equally serious, since it may have serious consequences for the Rechtsgefühle of citizens.